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4/08/2013

Dice Roles

SOURCE: Robot Chicken S5E16

Are certain dice called on to do specific sorts of tasks at the game table? Twenty-siders admittedly serve a lot of functions in most D&D-like games, but what if we broke down each of the dice types according to the task(s) and prop(s) to which they are most associated?

For early-generation systems, I think of d100 as the "thief skills" dice roll, and d6 as being the "noncombat functions" dice (1d6 for environment, 2d6 for social interaction). A d10, by itself, is the fighter dice; it gives the top end damage of some of the 2H weapons, and eventually becomes the 1e hit dice of those classes as well. The d12 is the "encounter subtable" dice for B/X, which is a pretty small niche.